Jimmy Fallon somehow let Gary Vaynerchuk do a free infomercial for his wine brand on ‘The Tonight Show’
Gotta hand it to Gary Vaynerchuk. He somehow convinced Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show” bookers to let him do what basically amounts to a mini infomercial for his wine brand under the guise of an educational taste-test segment.
“Gary Vaynerchuk Teaches Jimmy Everything to Know About Wine Tasting,” as the official YouTube clip of last night’s segment is titled, features him as an oenophile—as opposed to an agency chief or tech investor or foul-mouthed social media omnipresence. This allows Vaynerchuk to not only name-check the online wine retailer that was his early claim to fame, but his own wine brand, which he launched a year ago and that we won’t mention here because master self-promoter Gary Vee certainly needs no help from us. (We will say, though, that the wine’s name is unintentionally hilarious and, according to Merriam-Webster, is synonymous with pity*.)
In addition to imparting folksy wine-related wisdom such as “The number one thing that America isn’t doing enough of is the sniffy-sniff,” and claiming, unchallenged, that “We’re able to produce a $50 wine for twenty bucks” (which prompts applause from the studio audience), Vaynerchuk manages another remarkable feat: “This is the longest Gary Vee has gone without swearing,” as the most upvoted comment on the YouTube version of this segment notes.
*It’s a $20 synonym, but you can have it for $50.